“Not at all,” Donovan said, stroking her face. “Funny, when I was little, I wanted to live in a big house overlooking the sea. Far, far from the masses of humanity. With the girl of my dreams at my side. And a dog. A big, friendly dog.”
“We’re pathetic, you know?” Cathren laughed. “Here we are at the end of the world and we’re sharing childhood fantasies of happily-ever-after.”
“Worse, we’re nostalgic about the whole thing.” Donovan chuckled.
He got up on his elbow to face her. He kissed her cheeks and her eyelids and then her lips.
She returned his gentle kisses with one of her own. Despite their growing passion for each other, they drifted off to an exhausted, restless sleep, only to awaken with a start a couple of hours later.
Someone had entered the house.
Cathren and Donovan had dozed off and foolishly let their guard down. The house, the location, the food—all conspired to make them think they were safe. Lunacy.
Doors banged open downstairs, and things tumbled over loudly. Home invasion.
Donovan got up and raised his finger to his lips, caught her eye, and signaled her to stay put. She shook her head “no” and started to tiptoe over to him. Again, he waved at her to stay where she was, in vain.
They crept toward the head of the stairs. A loud crash came from below. Donovan strained to listen for the telltale moan of the zombie, but he didn’t detect one. Nothing upstairs resembled a weapon, so they’d have to go down and get a knife from the kitchen.
At the bottom of the stairs, they went through the dining room, away from the noises in the living room, and snuck into the kitchen. The serrated carving knife used to cut the meatloaf lay on the counter. Dried bits of meat and ketchup encrusted the blade. Donovan decided it would do.
So did his opponent.
Donovan dove for the knife at the same time his adversary did. They grappled by the counter in the darkness, both trying to fend off the other, both reaching desperately for the knife to take the first strike.
Whoever or whatever Donovan was grappling with stopped and called his name.
“Donovan?”
Donovan stopped fighting, loosened his grip, and stepped back. Cathren turned on the light.
“Rudy?” Donovan said. “What the hell—?” Before him stood his best friend, looking sheepish. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long story, man,” Rudra said. He laughed. “You would so not believe it.”
“Try me,” Donovan said, not amused.
“Well,” said Rudra, exhaling. He did not take his eyes off Cathren for most of his story. “You heard about all this crap going on with ATELIC, right? And these zombies everywhere? Well, I decided yesterday to get the hell out of town.” Rudra snapped his fingers as he said the word hell.
“Makes sense,” Donovan said, rubbing his chin. “So did we. How did you end up here, though, in this town, in this particular house? That’s my question.”
Rudra laughed again. “Come on. It’s a coincidence. Damn, you make it sound like I was tracking you or something.”
Donovan said nothing.
“Okay, fine. My aunt and uncle live in this neighborhood, right across the way.” Rudra pointed out the kitchen window. “This house has been abandoned for a few days. Belongs to Mrs. Boojie.”
“Boojie?” Cathren said.
“Anyway, I went out driving to see what was going on, checking for zombies.”
Donovan still kept quiet. Cathren edged up to him, slipping her hand under his arm.
“I, um, noticed a car parked up here, that’s how it happened,” Rudra continued, as if trying to remember the sequence of events himself. “So, I decided to investigate. Right. Dumb of me not to knock, though, agreed. I mean, zombies don’t drive, only people do. I guess I thought looters had broken in.”
A moment or two of awkward silence passed. Donovan spoke at last.
“Um, whatever.” He gathered his thoughts. “So, has everyone in this town fled?”
“Pretty much,” Rudra said, swallowing. “It’s a small community to begin with. Most folks decided to head north, away from the epicenter.”
“What’s your aunt’s first name?” Cathren interrupted.
“What?” Rudra said.
“Your aunt’s first name. What is it?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Didn’t understand your question. Um, Millie. I mean Mary, Aunt Mary.”
“Millie or Mary, which is it?” she said, an edginess to her voice.
“Mary. It’s Mary,” said Rudra. He stared at her tensely. “Look, sorry I broke in,” said Rudra, “but I’m not a criminal. Stupid mistake, that’s all.”
After a bit more awkwardness, Rudra left, and Donovan and Cathren made their way back to the bedroom.
“Too much of a coincidence, in my opinion,” Cathren said. “Really? A hundred miles from the city and we happen to run into him? I don’t buy it.”
“He’s a great guy. I can vouch for him,” Donovan said. “I think you’re looking for a mystery where there is none. But—”
“How long have you known him?”
“Rudy? Almost five years now. We’ve been surfing together since college.”
“Hmmmm. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was following us.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why,” she said. “Happened before, though. First with Egesa. Then with Alena Portanova.”
“I don’t believe Alena was trying to set us up. She saved us, saved you. At least she tried to, anyway.”
“That may be, or it may not,” Cathren said. “We never did find out her agenda, though. What she was really after.”
“You’re paranoid.” Donovan laughed. “She had no agenda.” He paused. “I don’t think so, anyway.”
“Regardless, now Rudra just shows up out of thin air?”
“Let’s worry about it in the morning,” Donovan said, yawning. “I need my sleep.”
“I don’t think we should go to sleep,” Cathren said. “I think we should leave. Right now.”
“Cathren—” Donovan said with a hint of exasperation.
“You know I’m right. It’s ATELIC people, I’m certain,” she said. She stood with her back to him, looking out the window. “They’ve found us. I don’t know how, but they have.”
“I don’t believe we have to dash out of here in the middle of the night, like thieves,” Donovan said.
“We do. We need to leave tonight. I feel it. If your friend Rudra is legit, we can contact him later, from some other place far from here.”
“Cathren, I don’t—”
“I mean it,” she said. “I’m leaving.”
She gazed up at Donovan, and he could tell she was worried, scared. She was mistaken about Rudra, though, but, more than anything, he wanted her to feel safe. He’d hoped that this place would be a refuge for them, for a few days. Not to be, however.
Donovan paced back and forth, rubbing his hand over his head. “Okay. You’re right, you’re right,” he said. He stopped pacing and slapped his hands together. “Get ready. Fast as you can. We leave in five.”
Just after 3:00 a.m., they got into the car and started it up. Donovan executed a k-turn to face the front of the vehicle forward while Cathren applied a dab of lip gloss. He kept the headlights off, which made going down the long, twisting driveway a bit rough. The waning moon helped a little.
They had travelled about halfway down the lane, when lights flashed on, and the ambush kicked in.
Chapter 44
After having been kidnapped, hijacked, and attacked, Donovan thought they’d be ready for anything. But the Black Ops team, or whatever it was, that dropped out of the night sky took them by surprise. Armed with full assault gear, the mercenaries descended on Donovan and Cathren like giant black spiders.
Donovan attempted to accelerate, but couldn’t find an escape route past the five or six troops pointing weapons at him through the windshield. More were behind him, too, as
well as on all sides.
Donovan stopped, the car screeching to a halt. He didn’t want to go out Bonnie-and-Clyde style, so he killed the engine to show goodwill. They sat and waited. No one shouted for them to get out, no one called out for them to display their hands. No one issued orders of any kind.
They didn’t have to wait long. A figure emerged from the dark bushes and approached the vehicle, a pistol held firmly between both hands, aimed at Donovan’s head.
“Sorry, man,” the voice said. Donovan recognized the voice immediately. “Didn’t want to do it this way. You can go. Cathren, here, stays with us.”
“Rudy? Really?”
“We tracked you using stoplight cameras, triangulation, satellite feeds. It took us awhile, but we finally caught up with you tonight. Couldn’t let you slip through our little net again, you know? Now, if you’d please do me a favor and step out of the car. Nice and easy.”
“Rudra, you don’t want to do this.”
“Yeah. I do. ATELIC hired my security firm to track Cathren down and bring her in. Bring her back to a Dr. Egesa. We don’t ask questions.”
“Mercenaries, I get it. Nevertheless, you don’t realize what you’re getting into here,” Donovan said. “You really don’t.”
Rudra smirked. “Yeah. Again, I think I do. Now get out. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, old buddy. Behave, and no one gets hurt.”
Donovan knew all too well how this was going to play out. The fear or anger or whatever it was that triggered Cathren’s zombie side would kick in any second now. She’d morph, attack, destroy, and then she and he would be on their way. He didn’t by any means want to see this happen to Rudra, but things had gotten weird these days. If it came down to Rudra’s survival or Cathren’s and his own, the choice was easy.
Donovan stepped out of the car and waited for the shit storm. But it didn’t come. He looked over at Cathren, who was just stepping out of the vehicle on her side.
Before she emerged all the way, a shot exploded in the night, and Cathren collapsed.
“Cathren—no!” Donovan turned to Rudra and yelled, “You son of a bitch!” He lunged at Rudra, who deftly sidestepped him. As Donovan stumbled past, Rudra smacked him in the head with the butt of his gun.
“She’s not dead!” he shouted as Donovan fell. “It was a needle. Dammit, a drug, not a bullet!”
Donovan landed on the ground, his head swimming. He struggled to stand, spying Cathren out of the corner of his eye. She had started to morph.
You’d think they’d know by now not to use drugs on her.
Yet, despite all Rudra had done to betray them, Donovan couldn’t let him die this way. To be torn apart by Cathren, the half-human killing machine.
He jumped to his feet at Rudra to drag him away. An assortment of automatic weapons pointed at Donovan in an instant. By training and reflex, the shooting began.
Rudra cried out, “No—stop!” His last act in this life was his greatest.
He stepped in front of Donovan and took a dozen bullets to the chest. His body armor absorbed these first few, fortunately and painfully. Two other bullets, however, were head shots. One in the forehead, one in the neck, directly into the carotid artery. Rudra collapsed, blood spurting from both wounds. He was dead before his body hit the ground.
Donovan stared at Rudra lying on the grass. The events of the past few minutes tried to force their way into his conscious brain, without success. Eyes glassy, Donovan stepped over his friend’s dead body and back into the car as if sleepwalking. He started it up while bullets danced around the car.
Cathren, meanwhile, made short work of a couple of ATELIC’s private soldiers. The majority of the team, however, had retreated to their Humvees.
“Cathren, get in!” Donovan shouted, not sure if the half-zombie version of Cathren would be able to comprehend him.
But she did.
Donovan roared down the driveway, spraying pebbles and dandelions in a dirt shower behind him. Bullets pinged the rear bumper, shattered the windows, and burst the back tire.
At the bottom of the driveway, he made a sharp right turn, popping onto two wheels for a shocking second. He touched back down, fishtailing across the pavement.
Right behind him, two armed Humvees shot into the street, the occupants inside reloading their weapons.
Donovan pushed the BMW as hard as he could. But the winding roads and flat tire made it challenging for both man and machine. The two Humvees gained on Donovan and Cathren. For the next couple of miles, they traveled in this configuration as they climbed into the foothills.
Then, one of the Humvees pulled up beside them.
Thump.
The larger vehicle tapped the BMW on the fender. Donovan fought to retain control of the car, which swerved dangerously close to the edge of the road. On the other side of the highway, there was nothing—except the sheer drop off a steep cliff.
Thump.
Another strategically placed bump sent Donovan and Cathren through the guardrail and over the side. Cathren screamed. Donovan gritted his teeth and gripped the wheel. The BMW rolled over and over as it headed to the base of the ravine, like an out-of-control clothes dryer. They reached the bottom, the car crashed and broken. Donovan, also crashed and broken, passed out from the pummeling halfway down the hill. When he woke up, night had returned.
And Cathren had vanished.
Donovan eased himself out of the wreck through the window opening, the glass having blown out somewhere on the hillside. He collapsed into the weeds, his neck, back, and arms aching.
As he lay there, a coyote or a feral dog howled in the distance. His head pounded, and he had Fourth of July sparkles in front of his eyes. He tried to stand up but was overcome by a sudden need to toss his cookies.
After, he lay back down and waited for the queasiness to pass and for his strength to return. He thought about Cathren. She was either dead or wounded. No doubt captured, since that was the mission of the ambush. Or somehow, just maybe, she had gotten away. He hoped for that option. And that he would see her again.
Alive.
His life made no sense otherwise.
With all his willpower, Donovan forced himself to stand. He climbed the hill, his face tense with pain. Back up on the road, he picked a direction and started walking.
Chapter 45
Donovan despaired of ever seeing Cathren again. Too many zombies. Walls of zombies, oceans of zombies. Turns out his battle plan wasn’t feasible, since it consisted of checking every floor of every building in the city and surrounding municipalities. Not doable by Donovan. Not by a thousand Donovans.
His plan had been to find help, form a kind of anti-zombie militia. If possible, a sane anti-zombie militia. Donovan had been searching for days since the car crash, unable to find a single entity who wasn’t either undead or out of his living brain. He took advantage of the occasional car with keys and a drop of gas in it. But that never got him very far. Anyway, almost every vehicle around had had its gas siphoned out long ago.
Donovan held a knife in his left hand and a metal baseball bat in the other, a Marucci CAT5 Squared. He hadn’t washed in many dirty days and had grown the beginnings of a beard. Food was scarce and he had been walking for miles. Donovan imagined he must look like a lunatic, albeit—from the lack of food and the constant walking—a ripped and toned lunatic.
He hiked along a path above the highway. From this vantage point, he listened and watched for trouble. No zombies showed themselves, however. Not for days. Did the undead migrate south for the winter?
Out of the blue, someone collided with Donovan and dropped him to the ground like a rock as if he were suddenly involved in a game of surprise tackle football. A man of Goliath proportions—and gigantic stench—knelt on Donovan’s chest, nearly suffocating him.
Goliath thundered a right cross against Donovan’s face, then a left. Donovan was treated to the familiar sight of globules of blood cascading across his field of vision.
&n
bsp; “Enough,” someone said, the command uttered by a human-sounding voice. Donovan couldn’t be sure, based on the crazies he’d run into, if that was a good thing.
Goliath grunted, shrugged his shoulders, and stood. He pressed his enormous hand into Donovan’s chest for leverage as he did so.
“Who are you?” the voice in authority said.
Donovan squinted his one good eye and peered toward the voice. A man with a shotgun stood before him. He seemed about as derelict as Donovan imagined himself to be. The man had a kind of hillbilly vibe with a wife beater on top, overalls below, and bare feet. He stood about Donovan’s height, a little older and a lot heavier. He had a ZZ Top-type beard, only shorter and streaked with red and gray.
“Friend or foe?” the man said.
“Friend, I guess,” Donovan said, spitting blood. “Not a zombie or a fossil, if that’s the question.” Donovan stood up and rubbed his cheek.
“You seen the fossils, then?”
“Yep.”
The ranks of the “fossils,” as they’d come to be called, were made up of a subset of the elderly who’d managed to dodge being bitten by zombies, as well as to avoid drinking contaminated water. The insane, the infirm, the aged. Having to deal with the stress that at any minute they could be chewed alive, this section of the senior citizen population had lost their tenuous grip on reality. Had let go of the ledge and fallen deep into lunacy. Now they attacked anything that moved. Including, and especially, normal human beings.
“Didn’t think you were either one, to tell the truth,” the man said, still staring at Donovan. “Zombies are mostly seen in packs these days, hunting. Fossils bond together, as well, creating gangs of their own. Either way, can’t be too careful, you understand.”
The man placed the butt of his rifle on the ground, holding the barrel by one hand. As he did so, the bushes around him rustled. One by one, others stepped out. Some in heavy camo, others in what was left of their business clothes, and some in just underwear, with various bits of plant life stuffed here and there as cover. Still more had gone Neanderthal, their midsections wrapped in animal hide. They carried what Donovan took to be zombie bones in their hands. Femurs and such, sharpened at one end. They had clearly been out here a long time, probably preceding the breakout.
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